


(you will need somebody) when you come to die

by othersideofthis (hikaru)



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (I promise the whole thing isn't in second person), (just go with me on this journey), Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Ghosts, M/M, POV Second Person, and also kissing, canon compliant deaths, really canon compliant everything except there are ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaru/pseuds/othersideofthis
Summary: “Do the men still speak of ghosts?” Francis asks.Jopson goes very still. His front teeth sink down into his bottom lip, looking as though he’s forcing himself to remain silent until he sorts out his thoughts. Finally, after a too-long pause: “Why do you ask?”
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26
Collections: Fall Fitzier Exchange





	(you will need somebody) when you come to die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [honeybeehum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybeehum/gifts).



> Please don't run away because of the second person tag. See end note for original prompt! 
> 
> Title from Andrew Bird's "Three White Horses". 
> 
> Thanks to C for making this better.
> 
> Come say hello on [tumblr](https://othersideofthis.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/othrsideofthis) and talk about sad, cold, dying boys with me.

You knew him once, before his bones crunched in your jaws, before you shred his flesh with your claws.

Some part of your animal brain knows this, and if you force yourself to concentrate hard enough, you can almost put a name to the gamey taste that lingers in your mouth. You can’t focus, though—the name slips out of your consciousness as fast as any other purely human thought—and you give yourself a shake, tip to tail.

You knew him, but it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s a smear of blood across the shale and you grow stronger than you were a day, an hour, a minute ago.

You hear a shout and you go still, head cocked, as you calculate the distance between you and the voice.

It's too close, and you're tired now, sluggish, gut full of meat. Ready to bed down, contemplate your next move.

You look back, once, in the direction of the shout, and then you run.

*

Francis Crozier cannot easily calculate his regrets. Which of his many missteps he will allow himself to be consumed by depends on the day—the hour, even.

The list of regrets lengthens with each and every day that passes. Tactical failures, personal failures. The men who have died on his watch. He can name all of the men, if he pauses long enough to take stock, but it’s not easy anymore to keep all of it straight. That’s probably a sin of some kind, or at the very least yet another way he's failed as a commander.

He used to be able to tick the losses off on his fingers, in order.

Gore, he starts with, even though they buried men before him. But Graham was the first to lead a party out, and he was the first to engage with the Netsilik, and he was the first to have his limbs ripped asunder by the monster.

Graham was also the first to come back.

*

Francis still doesn’t know if he’d entirely hallucinated the whole thing. He has so many other things to worry about that he can barely spare a thought for this.

But sometimes, the memory comes unbidden: the ship’s men assembled for Sir John’s service, and there, at the edges of the crowd, translucent enough that it nearly blended in with the looming ice, the familiar figure of Graham Gore, the upper part of his body a tangle of flesh and wool and meat.

Gore lifted his hand to the remnants of his brow in a horrible salute.

Francis abruptly halted, mid-sentence, in his recitation of Sir John’s final words. He stared for far too long at the spot on the ice where Gore lingered, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. No matter how rapidly Francis blinked, no matter that he pressed his gloved hand against his eyes hard enough to see stars, no matter—the vision stayed put.

From his right, Fitzjames coughed, bringing Francis back to this world.

Francis took a deep breath to steady himself, then looked down to regain his place in the service.

When he looked back up, Gore was gone.

Francis stumbled through the rest of the reading, eyes fixed on the distant spot where Gore’s form had loomed. It was not a good service, but Sir John’s words were strong and besides, the men knew that Francis was not a gifted orator. As with so many other people in his life, they expected precious little from him.

After Francis mercifully reached the closing of his remarks and the Marines had sent Sir John off with a volley in salute, he was seized with the need to know if anyone else had seen Gore. He wanted to unburden himself of what he saw, to know that perhaps he wasn’t alone in being gripped by this specific madness. As the men began to file back to their respective ships, Francis wandered through the dispersing crowd, looking for someone he could trust.

Scanning the ice, Francis quickly spotted the rest of his command. Irving, standing solemnly at the foot of Sir John’s awkward wooden coffin. Hodgson, pacing the ice, a nervous, unsettling energy radiating off of him. Little—Francis took a step towards him before halting mid-stride. He couldn’t put this burden on Little, not when he wasn’t even sure of what he saw. And, more still: he couldn’t have one of his own officers doubting Francis’ very own sanity, not now.

The only one left outside who Francis could even contemplate confiding in was Fitzjames, who hadn’t even budged yet from where he’d stood at Francis’ right side during the service. He remained on that spot, unblinking, back straight, utterly still, hands curled into fists at his sides.

In a normal world, on a normal ship, Francis wouldn’t have hesitated to trust a man in Fitzjames’ position. Certainly he looked the part of the dashing naval commander, fit and neat and so very self-assured. But Francis’ usual counterpart in an expedition wasn’t such an arrogant, grandstanding man as Fitzjames. No, Francis would rather walk out on the ice to await his own death than to tell Fitzjames that the corpse of Graham Gore had been watching the service.

He took another hurried look around the ice, though, and found his other options for a confidante were still as distasteful as before. His choices were Fitzjames or silence.

Francis waited, shifting his weight from foot to foot to keep moving, retain even a small amount of warmth out there on the ice. When it became clear that Fitzjames wasn’t leaving any time soon, Francis approached, clearing his throat just a few paces away from Fitzjames’ position.

Fitzjames’ whole body twitched as if he’d been struck; once recovered, he pivoted crisply to face Francis.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice tight and clipped.

Once again, the thought of doing an about face and walking out onto the ice crossed Francis’ mind. But Francis started this, so he may as well follow through. “When the men were assembled,” Francis started, “did you see—” He looked back out on the ice, narrowing his eyes at the spot he’d thought he’d spotted the ghostly remains of Gore. “Something was—that is to say—we are all of course under great stress, but—”

The word _I saw an apparition on the ice_ wouldn’t come out of Francis’ mouth. He could feel them there, clawing at his throat, lodged behind his teeth, settling there, heavy and foreign. But he couldn’t say them—not in general, and especially not to this man.

Instead of continuing to fumble for words, Francis paused, finally taking in Fitzjames’ expression—the tension in his jaw, the slightly wild look in his eyes—and decided to scrap the whole conversation. With most of the men now gone back to the boats and with even the barest hint of privacy, Fitzjames looked nearly as distraught as he had after losing Sir John. Francis felt as though the only thing keeping Fitzjames rooted in place on the ice, rather than draped melodramatically over Sir John’s casket, was a sense of decorum.

No, there was no sense in trying to continue when Francis could see how the scene would play out. Fitzjames, scoffing. Disbelieving. Furious at Francis, still, for daring to lead in the way he saw fit, for daring to step out from the shadow of Sir John Franklin. Sowing seeds of doubt with the other men at the exact moment when Francis could ill afford to have his leadership questioned.

“Something was what?” Fitzjames asked curtly. _Get on with it, man_ wasn’t spoken, but the sentiment, Francis felt, was lurking there.

Francis shook his head. He couldn’t open himself bare with this secret. It just wasn’t possible. “Nothing. Trick of the light, reflecting off of the ice.”

Fitzjames snorted, muttered something under his breath.

Francis wanted to push, wanted to demand Fitzjames speak up, but he knew that the inevitable fight wasn’t worth it. “Don’t stay out on the ice too long,” Francis said weakly instead.

*

"There's a rumor," Jopson tells him one morning as he fixes Francis' collar, displaces a stray thread, attempts to shove and tweak and cajole Francis into being a respectable captain.

Francis dismisses the notion with a grunt. "I don't traffic in rumors." He fidgets under Jopson's hands, his steady gaze, eager to get a move on with his day. "Facts, give me those instead."

"Well." Jopson steps away, turning his back to Francis as he goes to retrieve Francis' overcoat. "The facts, then, are that the men are, well." He hazards a look back at Francis. "They say that at night, they see figures out on the ice."

Francis goes still.

"Ghosts, they say," Jopson continues, mercifully not remarking on Francis' reaction. "Except that, well." He picks nearly invisible lint from the front of Francis' coat before lifting it off the hanger. "They have the faces of our lost men."

Frankly, that is a relief, compared to any of the other possibilities the men could be suggesting. Ghosts, well: Francis sees them out there with his own eyes, lurking, when the rest of the ship is asleep.

Gore, always with that same mocking salute that he directed at Francis at Sir John’s service, a tip of his non-existent hat from his nearly non-existent skull.

Evans, a mass of entrails pooled in his translucent hands.

Sir John, crawling along the ice, an endless bloody trail behind him.

Francis thought he'd been going mad. He had a thousand different reasons to drink himself into oblivion already, and so why not add this to his list of justifications, too?

The ghosts persisted. And where the ghosts walked, the footprints of the creature that stalked them almost always followed.

Francis had been surviving by telling himself that his mind was playing tricks on him, exhausted and ice-blind as he was. He despairs to think that perhaps he is completely of sound mind in this matter.

“Do you claim to have seen this too?” he demands. His tone is too sharp, he realizes, because a flicker of something fearful slides across Jopson’s face.

Jopson shrugs helplessly, apparently unwilling to speak more on the subject.

"Ghosts aren't real," Francis chides. "Simply the product of tired minds, and fear." He turns to allow Jopson to slide the overcoat up his arms, over his shoulders. "Dissuade that talk, when you hear it. I can't have the men spreading those sorts of tales."

Jopson's hands still on Francis' shoulders. He takes in a breath, then slowly lets it back out. "Aye, sir," he says finally. "There'll be no more talk of ghosts, then."

Francis nods, just once.

No more ghosts.

*

They leave the safety of their ships. This catches your attention. They’ll be so much easier to track this way.

You think that maybe the land will do your work for you, that perhaps you won’t have to mete out your own justice on them. You think you may even be able to ask this of the land itself, access some ancient connection between you and the earth that crunches underneath your great, lumbering body.

As they trudge away, you follow from a distance. Just to be safe. Just to know.

If the land doesn’t kill them, then you certainly will.

*

“Are we doing the right thing, Francis?” This is the third time Fitzjames has asked the question, and the second in the past hour or so they’ve spent together in Terror’s wardroom.

And for the third time, Francis has the same answer.

“What other option is there?” he asks. “We needed to make an example of those men. Need to cut any further thoughts of sedition down at the knees before they stick fast, drag us all down. Trap us, just like the bloody pack ice.” Francis slaps his hand against the table for emphasis.

Fitzjames slides his hands off the table, onto his lap. “And truly, no alternative to the lash?”

Francis snorts. Leave it to Fitzjames to try to find a softer touch to deal with a fucking mutiny. That’s the attitude of a man who’s never had to struggle against a turning tide of unhappy men. Francis almost wishes he could have that same level of hope, but if that impulse hadn’t been washed away before he set sail to the Arctic, well, it would be dead and gone now.

“What, more duty owed?” Fitzjames sputters weakly in response and Francis tries not to laugh. “Aside from tossing them into the sea if we ever find open water again, no, no, there is not.”

“The men will talk,” Fitzjames says, spreading his hands open in front of him. “And it certainly will not be to share the good news of Cornelius Hickey’s reformation.”

The barest hint of a smile tugs at one corner of Fitzjames’ mouth; Francis cocks an eyebrow at him. He can practically see the wheels turning in Fitzjames’ head, trying to figure out a way to spin this as a great tale for the future, one where he is the hero of the story, no doubt. “They already talk and gossip, Fitzjames, no matter how hard I’ve tried to quash their rumors. They are sailors, that’s what they do.”

Fitzjames tilts his head, considering. “And what exactly have you been... _quashing_ here on Terror?”

 _Ah, damn my mouth_ , Francis thinks. He does not want to talk to Fitzjames about the whispers he hears, about the apparitions he sees.

And yet, he was ready to trust Fitzjames with this, once, on a far worse day than this. Besides, Francis’ other options are still slim. No one else save Jopson has spoken the word _ghost_ aloud to Francis, though he still hears the men whisper it when they think he isn’t listening.

He could tell Jopson, Francis thinks. The steward has served long enough at Francis’ side that he has little concern that Jopson would mock him, or tell the other men that their captain’s gone ‘round the bend.

Fitzjames? He’s as dangerous a choice now as he was on the day of Sir John’s service. Fitzjames could stoke the flames of distrust in Francis’ leadership leagues more than any set of pathetic, whipped seamen could do.

Francis wraps his hands around the near-empty drinking glass on the table. “The men on Erebus,” he begins, looking down at his drink. “Do they see things?”

“The beast?”

“Aye, there’s always that, but I’m not talking about the creature for once.” Francis pauses to knock back the rest of his drink; when he reaches for the whisky bottle for a refill, he finds it almost empty. Francis’ hand hovers mid-air for a moment before he snatches it up and pours the rest into his glass. There’s no chance that he continues this conversation without another drink. “I’ve heard reports that some of the men here see…” Francis pauses, then sighs, as if he’s relaying something ridiculous. “Ghosts.” At saying the word aloud, Francis feels near instant relief, even if he’s not confiding in someone he actually wishes to share this secret with.

Fitzjames is utterly silent, so long so that Francis looks up from his whisky to make sure something hasn’t happened. His face is blank, betraying no recognition of what Francis had uttered.

“Specters. Shimmering forms out there on the ice,” he goes on, in case Fitzjames had missed the point. “Apparitions that look like our dead men.”

A disgruntled noise escapes from Fitzjames. “I know what a ghost is, Francis.” He breathes out, hard, nostrils flaring. Francis can’t decide if he’s furious or just being his natural, irritating self. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, spirits, what have you. Is that what's going on here?” He flaps one hand in the air, gesturing towards the ceiling, the deck above.

Francis instantly feels the same irritation rising within him that he feels every time he has to spend more than a few moments talking to Fitzjames. “I didn't say they were real,” he retorts, “I only said that the men report seeing them.”

“Then all of your men have gone mad,” Fitzjames says quickly. “And you along with them for giving it even a moment of your time.” He pushes his chair back and stands up. He looms over Francis, the light from the ship’s weak lamps bursting out to shine around Fitzjames’ head like some demented halo.

There is something compelling in the fury writ across his face, the way he looks perfectly composed. He carries himself well and Francis thinks, not for the first time, that he understands why people speak of James Fitzjames as handsome. If it weren’t for the arrogance that radiates off of him at every waking moment, Francis would possibly be inclined to agree.

The only strange thing about the realization for Francis is that it comes to him now when his mind is clear, unaffected by vice. He sees, now and always, why people hang on Fitzjames’ every word, and it’s not necessarily because his tales have any merit to them. Francis thought once that perhaps they could have put differences aside to work together to get them out of this ice, but as Fitzjames drones on and on about all of Francis’ shortcomings, he realizes that he was sorely mistaken.

“Do we have an even larger problem here than Mr. Hickey’s pathetic attempt at a mutiny?” Fitzjames lifts up the empty whisky bottle, then drops it back down to the table with a thud.

Francis can think of nothing but a litany of insults to hurl at Fitzjames, but he remains silent. Jaw clenched, molars grinding against each other hard enough that surely Fitzjames can hear it. He doesn’t know what possessed him to think this conversation was a good idea, can’t determine why he thought it was a good idea to trust Fitzjames in the first place.

Fitzjames sighs, then, and sits back down abruptly, deflated. “Can I give you a word of advice, Francis?”

A bitter laugh bubbles up before Francis can stop it. “Absolutely not.”

Fitzjames carries on, utterly ignoring Francis’ objection. “For better or worse—sometimes I am certain it’s for worse—God or fate or something else has put you in charge of this expedition. Now, I know something passed between you and Sir John—” Francis interrupts Fitzjames with a snort, a shake of his head, at the reduction of his entire past with Sir John down to such a simple, innocuous phrase. “—and I know, it is impossible to resolve that fracture now, but this is your command.” Fitzjames curls his fingers around the neck of the whisky bottle and thumps it on the table to punctuate his words. “Are you going to actually lead?”

“What the hell do you think I am doing here?” Francis snaps. He stands and snatches the empty bottle away from Fitzjames. “Hm? I am trying to lead, and you come here, asking if we should have been softer?” Francis shakes his head. “No. Between ghosts and the creature and the girl and the fucking ice, I have enough to worry about without you—” Francis waves the empty bottle at Fitzjames. “Without whatever this is.” He walks to the door, footsteps heavy on the groaning wood, and opens it. “We’re done here.”

*

Thomas doesn’t want to talk about the beast — the tuunbaq, Silence called it. Francis thinks he understands: it took Thomas’ leg, after all, and the worst the men could do to it was singe it.

There’s a long silence between the two of them, before Thomas finally breaks it. “It’s not because of the leg, Francis,” Thomas snaps. “I want another crack at that creature as much as anyone here. But—”

Francis gestures broadly, encouraging Thomas to continue.

Eventually, he sighs, weary. “You’ll think I’ve gone mad.”

Francis snorts. “If you have, then you’re in good company, at least.”

Another long silence. Thomas reaches for the bottle of whisky propped up on the table next to him. Francis’ fingers itch, his whole body burns, but he doesn’t move to snag it from his friend’s hands when he’s done. It’s a strange thing to resist an impulse that he’s given into for more years than just the ones they’ve been trapped in the ice for, but he knows now, he doesn’t have a choice. Not if he wants to live. Not if he wants to lead his men out of this place.

“Ah, fuck,” Thomas mutters. “I looked that thing in the eyes, Francis, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t see it wearing the face of Graham Gore for just a moment.”

Of all the things Francis was expecting Thomas to say, that wasn’t even in the realm of possibility.

“Impossible,” Francis scoffs. “You were under duress. Injured. Bleeding. It was dark. Not mad, mind you, I don’t think that. But.” He pauses, spreads his hands open. “The mind sees funny things, when you think you’re about to die.”

Thomas turns a skeptical eye on Francis. “You’ve never known me to be a liar, Francis, and I wouldn’t take it up now. Not about this.” He taps his fingers against the peeling label on the whisky bottle. “And, speaking frankly, of the two of us, I was the one who was stone cold sober up there.”

That stings more than it should, coming from Thomas, but Francis knows he deserves it. He was the one who sent Thomas up top in a rage after their argument. He was the one who demanded everyone else do work while he sat and hid and drank and yelled, and then drank some more.

 _Why do you want to die?_ Lady Silence had asked him. And, hell: maybe Francis didn’t want to die, but he was running out of reasons to live. What is the point, after all, when you are stuck in a land that wants you gone, that gives no quarter? And what is the point when—even if they manage to free themselves from this damned ice—Francis has nothing to look forward to but a court martial and an involuntary retirement. He won’t ever sail again, he knows that now, and he doesn’t even have the promise of Sophia waiting for him when he steps off that dock. Men like Fitzjames get the glory, the accolades, the rapid ascension through the ranks of the Royal Navy, while Francis has to scrape and claw for everything he has ever had.

The memory of Silence’s accusation, and the truth of it, rattles in his head and he breathes deeply, letting every angry retort subside.

“Even if we pretend what you say about Gore and the beast is true,” Francis starts, trying to sound even, unconcerned, not wounded. “Even if we agree to believe that the beast has taken on the face of Lieutenant Gore, what does it mean?”

“Silence called it tuunbaq—a spirit that dresses as an animal, remember?” Thomas rubs one hand over the stump of his leg, picking at the fraying bandages wrapped around it. “If it’s a spirit, then could it be doing more than just killing our men?”

Francis’ mind turns immediately towards the eerie, translucent figures he keeps seeing out there on the ice. The mangled bodies of his men, his friends, winking in and out of existence.

They didn’t start showing up until Gore died at the hands—no, the jaws; the claws—of the tuunbaq.

With nearly every death, Francis spots a new wraith out there, a new ghostly hand streaking down the windows of his berth, a new figure haunting this waking nightmare. Are they truly connected?

He can’t raise the point to get an opinion without telling Thomas that he, too, is seeing things, and he knows exactly what Thomas’ response will be: _maybe you wouldn’t be seeing things if you weren’t trying to drink yourself to death_.

“I don’t know,” Francis says finally. “I don’t know that I care, either. Dead is dead.” Thomas snorts, but Francis means what he said: he reads the service on the ship when he has to, flips through the stiff pages of the ship’s Bible when he must, but it’s just another routine for him, another task to get through before the day is out. “If it’s taking their souls, or if it’s only killing them, what does it matter, other than it wants us dead, and we wish nothing other than the same for it?”

Thomas shakes his head. “It had that boy’s face,” he says, “and now we’ve gone and maimed it. I don’t think I like what’s coming next.”

*

At the worst moments of his convalescence, Francis sees the ghosts all the time, even when he closes his eyes. Here, at least, the visions make sense. Men with limbs ripped asunder, Sir John glowering at him from even the beyond. Here, Francis thinks they are the product of his mind, the last gasps of his body trying to decide if it can—if it wants to—survive without whisky.

The door slides open and for a moment, the grisly remains of David Bryant, that poor Marine, hang in the doorway before Jopson steps through, carrying a tray of something the stench of which churns Francis’ stomach, empty as it is. Francis realizes Bryant is holding three-fourths of his skull in his hands, and Francis feels even closer to retching.

Francis lifts his head weakly and stares at both Bryant’s apparition and Jopson. “Come to haunt me, too, then?” Francis rasps.

Bryant merely tilts the remains of his head—a jaw, a cheek—in Francis’ direction.

“Sir?” Jopson looks up from the pitcher of water he’s pouring from.

Francis closes his eyes and rolls over, presses his face into his pillow, stinking and soiled as it is. He debates telling Jopson what it is that he sees, what’s lurking in the air just out of reach. But his directive, his very own orders, said: no more ghosts.

And yet, here he is, seeing ghosts.

Francis props himself up on an elbow to take another look at the room. Bryant lurks at Jopson’s elbow. Francis opens his mouth to speak, even draws breath, but realizes he has no words that actually _work_ , and besides, it’s been too long since Jopson addressed him in the first place. Any response would fall awkwardly now, so he remains silent.

Jopson shakes his head and gathers up some fresh linens. “Let’s freshen this up, sir,” he says, and as he turns to advance towards Francis’ bed, he steps right through Bryant’s shimmering ghost. Francis means to make an attempt to sit up, but he finds himself struck still and silent as the remnants of the Marine dissipate into a fine mist that rolls along the ceiling.

Jopson shivers, rolls his shoulders back, then shakes his head. He sets the linens at the foot of the bed and then stoops down to work one arm around Francis’ shoulders. “Up you go.”

With a heave and a groan, Francis is hauled up. The world spins for a moment as he settles upright. He sits and lets Jopson tend to him. He can’t think clearly now, anyway, with his vision gone blurry, his spine practically jelly.

Jopson’s busy hands and quiet narration of his actions fade out into the background for Francis. “Swapping out the linen, sir,” and “I’ll see if I can find you a new pillow after this” and “Let me just fix your hair, make sure you’re regulation, sir” all flow over Francis’ slumped form like water.

As Francis leans against the wall of his berth, feeling the wood press up against his back, he thinks about telling Jopson about Bryant, about all of the other figures he’s seen on the ship, on the ice. Even if Jopson thought him mad, even if he made soothing noises about fever and exhaustion, it might feel good to say the words out loud. To say that sometimes, at night, he looks out onto the ice and sees Sir John crawling out of the fire hole.

“There you go, sir,” Jopson says, breaking Francis out of his thoughts. Jopson’s straightening the collar of Francis’ shirt, so it won’t rumple and irritate his skin when he settles back in bed. “You lie back down while I fetch that pillow.”

He puts one hand to Francis’ shoulder, preparing to guide him back down, but Francis stops him, hand snarling tightly around Jopson’s wrist.

“Do the men still speak of ghosts?” Francis asks.

Jopson goes very still. His front teeth sink down into his bottom lip, looking as though he’s forcing himself to remain silent until he sorts out his thoughts. Finally, after a too-long pause: “Why do you ask?”

He resumes his push against Francis’ shoulder, and this time Francis allows it, folding his body back down to lie flat on the bed. Now it’s Francis’ turn to stay silent, forcing Jopson to wait for a response. This would be easier if Francis was drunk. Nearly everything would be easier if he was.

Instead, he says, with a mostly-clear mind for the first time in ages: “Sometimes I see things.” He flickers his eyes open to see Jopson’s reaction; he’s too well trained from years of being at Francis’ side, though, because his face gives away nothing. Francis exhales and continues. “I see things, and I don’t know if they’re real. I’ve tried to understand why—my mind playing tricks on me? The scurvy setting in? All of this?” He gestures vaguely at himself, in stained nightclothes, being tended to like an invalid. “But no matter what, they’re out there on the ice, all the men we’ve lost.”

Jopson busies himself with collecting a glass of water for Francis, giving a tentative stir to the slop he brought in as a meal. He stays silent for so long, not even daring to look at Francis, that Francis is convinced that he’s lost Jopson, finally, after everything. Cleaning up Francis’ vomit and piss and everything else was fine, maybe, but Francis admitting to seeing ghosts? That’s perhaps a bridge too far.

His back is to Francis, fussing with something unseen, when he finally speaks. “I see them, too,” he says, so softly that Francis thinks he’s misheard at first. Jopson looks back over his shoulder at Francis, catching his eye. “Every time I’m up top and looking out on the ice, I catch something out of the corner of my eye.” He looks away again, but tilts his head up, looking at the ceiling. “Sir John, I see him sometimes. Crawling after you when you’re coming back from Erebus.”

“Christ,” Francis blurts. “I’ve never noticed that.”

Jopson doesn’t move. “You never turn back around, sir, on the ice.” He runs a hand through his hair before facing Francis again. “You truly mean it, that you see them?”

“You had to walk through Sergeant Bryant to get in here,” Francis says, gesturing at the doorway.

Jopson turns back around but, of course, there’s nothing at the door anymore. “I thought I was going mad, when I started seeing them.”

“Maybe we both are, then.” Francis tugs the sheet up around his shoulders and closes his eyes.

He feels lighter than he has in weeks, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he is starting to see clearly now, or if it’s because he unburdened himself to Jopson. And to not be rejected for his confession, oh, Francis feels a surprising amount of peace with the realization. He feels like he can breathe again.

Francis is dimly aware of Jopson’s hand at his brow, fingers combing through Francis’ hair. “I’m afraid of what it means if we’re not mad, sir,” he whispers, but before Francis can respond, sleep has claimed him.

*

At night, you circle the camp. There are so few men now. So tired, weak. Undefended. You salivate at the thought of hooking your claws into the battered canvas of a tent and feasting on the bones of whatever you find inside.

There isn't enough meat to make all of this worth the work, but it doesn't matter. You have a job to do, a job made infinitely easier by the fact that the men are so soft, so fragile, so unprotected.

They don’t belong here, so you will remove them yourself, if you have to. They shouldn't be here, on this land. They bring nothing but death.

You did, too, when you were one of them.

You atone for it now.

You howl.

Quickly comes the stampede of feet, the shouting of men roused from their tents. You salivate at the thought of fresh meat.

You howl again, and then you run to join the fray.

*

Sobriety was hard-fought for Francis, but he did it, emerging from his quarters with a clear mind, a renewed confidence in his ability to command.

He did not think that the first thing he’d face in his new life was a catastrophe. A whole line of men, burned to death or trampled or worse.

He sits alone in silence, fingers working along well-worn grooves in the table. This is not what he wanted.

There’s a commotion in the hallway, the low murmur of voices, getting increasingly urgent. Before Francis can rouse himself to find out what’s going on, his door swings open with a clatter and Fitzjames steps through.

For all the years now that Francis has been alternating between working with and despising Fitzjames, he’s never seen the man like this: wide-eyed, wild, disheveled. Not in anything close to proper uniform, the buttons of his vest half undone, his coat hanging limply from his shoulder. His hair fans out around his face in a tangled riot. The smell of smoke, charred wood, and something perhaps more sinister clings to him, even days after everything burned.

Francis feels like he’s seeing something private, not meant for his eyes, this version of James Fitzjames. He looks vulnerable, and instead of reveling in it like he had thought he wanted, Francis wants nothing more than to find a way to take away whatever’s hurt him.

With shaking hands, Fitzjames pulls the door shut behind him and simply stands there, shoulders heaving, as he stares at Francis.

“Do you still see ghosts?” he asks. No preamble, no small talk, no interminable story before he gets to his point. He just blurts it out, his voice strained, raw.

Francis tilts his head. “I never said I saw—”

“Please,” Fitzjames interrupts, and there is something broken in that one syllable. Francis’ mouth clicks shut. “Please, do not do this to me. Not now, Francis.” He lifts his hands in front of him, pleading.

It’s jarring, seeing Fitzjames like this—completely undone. Francis finds that he hates it, he actually despises seeing Fitzjames in so much obvious pain.

Francis cannot lie, cannot find it within himself to be cruel enough to misdirect this man. He says nothing, just nods in agreement, and Fitzjames exhales, practically deflates against the door.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see Dr. Stanley lit up like a rocket. When I look out at the ice, I see that line of charred bodies.” He gestures vaguely towards the door. “They’re waiting for rest. Peace. Who will tell their mothers, their wives, how they lived? How they died?” Fitzjames shakes his head and pushes away from the door, crossing the room uninvited to slump down in an empty chair. “Who will tell them that these men were _good_?”

Francis scrubs his hands against his face. He would promise Fitzjames anything to make this stop. Francis leans forward, sliding one hand tentatively across the table. “We will live, James, and when we return home, if I must, I will visit each of them in turn. The Admiralty doesn’t know what happened here, but I do. Their families will know, James.”

The name feels odd on his tongue, heavy, the syllable pushed out between his teeth, but Francis finds that he likes it, the comfort of a level of familiarity. This moment, he knows, does not call for the straight-laced bureaucracy of the ship. This moment calls for heart. For compassion. Francis used to be better at calling upon those things. Maybe, he thinks, he can start again now. Start over.

James laces his fingers behind his neck and tilts his head up, staring at the ceiling. “But do you see them, Francis?”

Francis takes a long time to answer, studying James instead. The erratic rise and fall of his chest, the dark circles under his eyes, the tense way he holds his whole body.

Francis thinks about lying. It would come so easily, even now, even sober, as new and fragile as that is for him. He thinks about it for a long time, listening to the hitch in James’ breathing. He wishes, not for the first time, that he didn’t have to be sober for this—for this conversation, to lead the remnants of this expedition, to live.

“I don’t see the men from the carnivale,” Francis says, choosing his words with caution.

A distressed noise erupts from somewhere deep within James, almost a sob tearing itself free, and he crumples forward, hanging his head between his knees.

Francis can barely even look at James like this, so distraught. He knows instantly that he must finally be plain with the other man. Being obtuse is only going to cause more pain. He reaches out and sets his fingertips against James’ knee, drawing his attention back. “I don’t see the men from the carnivale, but the men killed by the tuunbaq—those men, I still see them, yes.”

James goes still save for the slow lift of his head to look up at Francis, holding his gaze.

“I thought it was the drink, at first, but—” Francis shrugs. “My mind is clear now, and yet the men are still there.”

“Now?” James asks. His voice cracks and he sounds very young. Small. Fragile.

Francis cracks a hint of a smile. “Well, I haven’t looked outside lately.” Outrage blooms across James’ face, but Francis holds his hand up, not allowing the joke to linger.

The spirit Francis sees the most is Sir John. He always has a habit of appearing when Francis feels low; when Francis spent weeks as an invalid, trying to free himself from the whisky, Sir John was always there, beckoning. But it feels cruel to give that image to James—no matter Francis’ troubles with Sir John, James looked up to him. He chooses to be gentle instead.

“I see Graham Gore all the time, since the day he was killed. Most days, that Marine, Bryant, he floats around holding what’s left of his head in his hands. Not a care in the world, other than to haunt me.” Francis doesn’t lie, not exactly. The truth is close enough. “Evans, Strong, the others. All of the time, James.”

James presses a hand over his eyes. “This is my fault. Those dead men are my fault. I should _have_ to see them every day.”

With a groan, Francis hauls his body out of his chair and circles, stopping next to James. He hesitates only a moment before resting one hand between James’ shoulders. He feels the rise and fall of James’ body as he breathes, jittery, uneven, as if he’s near to crying. “If it’s your fault,” Francis says softly, “then I should shoulder some blame as well.”

James cranes his neck, trying to look back over his shoulder at Francis. “You didn’t organize a celebration for the men. You didn’t get carried away—”

“True, but it was because I was too busy puking and shitting and sweating to be of any use at all.” Francis curls his hand over the back of James’ neck and holds still. “I have been utterly unfit, and you—” Francis pauses, almost surprised at how easily the praise comes to him now. “You saw a need and you filled it. You gave the men hope, James, even if for just a few hours. You couldn’t have known how it was going to end.”

His fingers begin to move restlessly against James’ collar. “We are not clairvoyants, James. Of all the things we should have been able to predict, what Dr. Stanley did was not something you could have foreseen.”

James’ shoulders heave under Francis’ hand. “It was my command, and—”

Francis shushes him. “It was your command because I was in no state to lead. And if you made a mistake—a well-intentioned one, do not mistake me—then next time you have command of a ship, if you find yourself in such a situation—”

James interrupts Francis with a laugh, high and wild.

“If you somehow find yourself in such a situation, which I pray you do not,” Francis presses on, as if James isn’t coming apart at the seams. “You’ll know better how to read the men, know their moods, keep things from getting out of hand.”

James sits up then, dislodging Francis’ hand at his back. “Do you truly think that after all of this, I’ll be allowed anywhere near a ship again?” There’s an uncommon amount of bitterness in his voice, a curl to his lip that nearly makes Francis take a step back.

Instead, Francis sighs and moves to crouch in front of James. His movement is slow, labored. His bones hurt, joints creak and pop. He is just so very tired. Francis eyes the other man for a moment, then reaches out to take up one of his hands, holding it tightly. “When we make it home, I’ll be in no position to demand anything of the Admiralty, but I would try, for you. To find a way for you to return to the open seas, to another adventure, after all of this, if you wished it.”

James breathes in sharply. “Francis,” he starts, but he doesn’t go on. Instead, he squeezes Francis’ hand in his, then bows his head to rest their clasped hands against his forehead.

*

When Francis tries to count his many sins—when he lays his head down for another fitful hour or two of sleep, teeth chattering, fingers numb, skull rattling with nightmares—he finds that they all are interconnected.

If only he had never set foot on the Terror. If only he'd never decided to take one last journey to sea. If only he'd been able to persuade Sir John, force him to listen, to turn back.

If, if, if—

If only they'd left well enough alone.

*

Their world now is an endless expanse of shale, bleached white, a hideous sprawl as far as the eye can see, uninterrupted for miles around. A frigid white nothingness. It is a world that knows nothing but cruelty. It wants everything a man can give and then some, and Francis at times is certain he has nothing left to give up to this land, save his own life.

He doesn’t know what James has left to give up to this place in sacrifice. His life, too, maybe; Francis sees how James winces in pain on their walk, how he tries to wipe away fresh trails of blood seeping from his skin before anyone notices. Francis knows, deep down, that somewhere, a clock is ticking.

And then: “I’m a fake, brother.”

The truth comes tumbling out of James, a lifetime of obfuscations finally unravelling, and Francis knows what this land wanted to pry out of James. This world has forced him to be rid of his last secret, to set his life bare before Francis and this unforgiving land. This is what James had left to give, and all Francis can think is: _how very brave_. How very human, too, to need a confessor, even at the end of the world.

Francis takes it all in—the careful crafting of a life that James wanted to lead, the gentle machinations that led him here, the white-hot desire to be seen above all else. He takes it in and he holds it, this precious gift of honesty, this new trust between him and James, and he waits for what’s next.

“Are we brothers, Francis?” he asks. “I would like that very much.”

As Francis curls his hands around James’ arms, holding him there, he finds he can’t understand any more why he spent so long hating this man. That’s something else this land took from him, but that, Francis is glad for. Holding on to that feeling, that enmity, would have only gotten all of them killed long before now.

“Brothers,” Francis agrees. He lifts one gloved hand to James’ face, presses it against his cheek. His fingertips burn against James’ skin, and he hears James take in a sharp breath.

“This land has taken everything else from me,” James admits. “All of my secrets. Everything I’ve ever done, gone. I don’t know what’s left to give.”

Francis knows what is left. It’s the last thing that he’s held back, afraid to turn the thought loose into a world that will surely only ruin it. But what did James just say? The end of vanity, indeed. Francis decides that there is no more reason to hold this so close to his heart anymore.

“You don’t know?” Francis asks. Before he can think better of it, Francis lifts his hand to thumb away the stray tear sliding down James’ face.

James’ hand shoots up, his fingers circling tight around Francis’ wrist, holding him in place. “Francis—” His voice hits a note midway between pleading and warning.

Francis says nothing, merely inclines his head. Arches an eyebrow. Nods, once, gently, and then waits.

He doesn’t have to wait long—the span of a few heartbeats, the amount of time it takes to blink and then refocus your eyes.

James tilts his head down, and in that brief moment of time—the heartbeat, the blink—presses his lips to Francis’. Slow, cautious. Francis opens into the kiss, encouraging it to deepen. The tang of blood blooms on his tongue, and he hates that even this comes with a reminder of that ticking clock that is coming for all of them.

There is never enough time. James pulls away, presses his forehead to Francis’ shoulder. His breathing is rough, winded, like they’ve walked further than a few miles, like they’ve shared more than just one kiss.

“There,” Francis says, pressing a kiss to James’ temple. “There, James. This place cannot take anything else, now. There is nothing else to hide. You are free.”

James is still for only a moment before his shoulders begin to shake. Francis pretends not to notice the way that his collar becomes damp with tears, and thinks, instead, that he wants to—has to—live.

*

They walk. Men bleed, and cry, and die.

The ghosts trudge alongside them. Sometimes, James nods his head at one, questioning without saying a word. Francis will look over his shoulder to confirm who it is—there are more of them now, since the tuunbaq ripped through their party in the fog, and he can’t always tell who is who on first glance—and he always finds himself shocked to see James’ relief that Francis can see them too.

Francis watches James from the corner of his eye while they haul the sledges endlessly.

This land is still going to ask more from them. He sees it in the way James loses his thoughts mid-sentence, the way the slightest touch causes him to bruise and bleed.

When James finally stumbles, is hauled groaning and bleeding into the sledge, Francis can’t exactly say that he’s surprised, but that doesn’t stop him from sending everyone away from his tent once they make camp. He lashes the flaps shut tight and, finally alone, puts his head in his hands and weeps.

There isn’t much time, and they still have miles and miles to go.

*

"Francis," James says, his voice barely more than a death rattle in his throat. "When I go—bury me down deep. Don't let me become one of them."

Francis lifts James’ hand from where it rests, curled on his chest, and laces their fingers together.

"Please," James rasps. "Find enough men to dig. I can't bear—"

He doesn't know how to get rid of the ghosts any more than he knows how to find civilization, food, a way out of this place. He thinks he could dig a pit so deep that no one could see the bottom of it, and that still wouldn’t stop James’ soul from becoming untethered.

If Francis knew—if he had an answer to any one of those questions—James wouldn't be dying in front of him. James would be wrapped in furs, warm and safe, with the Netsilik or with a rescue party or on Erebus or back in fucking England. Healthy and whole instead of a barely-breathing skeleton, waiting for the death sentence that will doom him to becoming a walking nightmare.

"Yes, James," Francis responds, because what else can he do but lie? Lie to this dying man, to the one person left here who _sees_ him, sees his faults and his lies and his failures, and instead of finding Francis lacking in any way, he only loved him more for it.

Francis lies because he loves James.

The realization hits hard enough to knock the wind out of him, and he quickly leans forward, presses his forehead to James’ shoulder so he can’t see the dumbstruck look on Francis’ face.

What terrible fucking timing, Francis thinks. What an absolute shit deal for all of them.

“Francis,” James whispers, drawing Francis back out of his thoughts. “Promise me.”

“I hear you,” Francis answers, lifting his head to meet James’ unfocused gaze. "We'll dig. I’ll do it myself if I have to. Weight it down with stones. Build a cairn over you." He presses his lips to the inside of James' wrist. "You'll have a dignified rest."

James exhales, another terrifying rattle shaking loose from his chest. "Thank you, Francis."

What else can Francis do? What other option does he have? He squeezes James’ hand and hopes that when the end comes, that a God Francis doesn’t quite believe in anymore finds a way to show some fucking mercy for once.

*

Francis can’t sleep. This is his normal state of affairs, save for the empty feeling clawing at him, eating him up. When he closes his eyes, he sees James, bleeding and bruised, his body giving out. James, begging to be free. James, gasping for breath as Francis pours poison down his throat.

Francis stops closing his eyes.

Somewhere in his long, sleepless night, a noise outside draws his attention. It’s something he can’t quite put his finger on: not quite a howl, not exactly a groan. Not wholly animal or human. Whatever it is, it isn’t good.

Francis dresses quickly and shoves his pistol in the pocket of his coat. He should wake someone else, but there’s no time. If it’s Hickey and his band of mutineers, or if it’s the tuunbaq, or if it’s something else, Francis needs to know now. He tosses open the flap to his tent and emerges into the endless gloom of night.

There’s nothing there. No beast, no man. Nothing. The only sounds are the slight rustle of canvas when the wind picks up, and the soft moaning of his men, all of their bodies radiating pain and illness. There’s no rest for anyone in camp tonight, it appears.

Francis begins to walk around, stepping lightly against the shale to keep from rousing anyone else. He makes his way through the maze of tents and doesn’t realize until it’s too late that his feet have carried them to the makeshift medical tent.

There aren’t any sick men left in there tonight. Just the body of James Fitzjames, waiting for the break of morning light to be set to rest.

Francis pauses outside the tent, closes his eyes, bows his head.

A sudden chill comes over him, and Francis hugs his coat tighter around his body. A breeze kicks up, ruffling nothing other than Francis’ hair and the canvas of the medical tent. From behind him, the sound of boots crunching through the shale.

Francis whirls around, one hand reaching for the pistol in his pocket.

On the rocks, in the gloom of night, is James, translucent, one hand outstretched to Francis. He looks just as weary in death as he did in his final moments.

“No,” Francis breathes. Because this is not what he wanted, not what James wanted. “No, you don’t dare—”

The apparition curls his fingers, beckoning Francis closer.

“No,” he says more forcefully. From a nearby tent, a man makes a startled noise, roused by Francis’ voice. Francis shuts his eyes tight. If he can’t see this false version of James, then maybe it isn’t real. “Go,” he says, “please go.”

He keeps his eyes shut as another breeze rustles through the camp; when he opens them, he is alone again.

Francis’ feet carry him back to his tent. He’s sure it’s not a conscious decision. He doesn’t remember choosing to leave that spot, but soon he is wrapped under blankets and furs, shivering still.

As exhaustion threatens to overtake him, Francis realizes with a start that James wasn’t killed by the tuunbaq, and yet there he was, a ghost all the same. The first man that Francis can recall who’s come back like this who died another way. He doesn’t know what it means.

Maybe he imagined it.

Yes, he decides. Yes, maybe that terrible floating spectre was all in his head. Losing his mind, it turns out, is more of a comfort than he’d thought it would be.

*

You were given a choice when you died. You don’t know if everyone was given the same offer. You don’t know if anyone else took it. You have no way of knowing.

All you know is that after your last conscious thought faded away, you felt a pull in two different directions: one led away from this world, and one led you to the beast.

You chose the beast.

*

In the end, you cut them all down with ease. You spare them no quarter. When they run, you chase, and you always win.

For once, you actually find pleasure in the task at hand, because there is some part of your mind, as feral as it has become, that remembers that Cornelius Hickey is a traitor, a rat, a deluded fucking madman.

You remember so few other things from your life before. But you cannot forget that, and so when he extends his offering to you, it is your only regret that you can neither eat him whole nor make him suffer.

You do, however, relish the dawning realization creeping across his face right before your jaws clamp down over his arm.

As you shake him apart in your jaws, your mouth fills with the hot gush of blood. It tastes like poison, metallic and bitter on your tongue, and you spit up what you can. You cannot use any of that, you cannot honor any of that.

As you continue to retch, trying to rid your mouth of that fowl taste, you hear the scramble of feet on shale, and you look up.

There is only one man left, but instead of fleeing, he sits completely still, hands raised up in front of him.

He looks at you for a long, long time.

You snarl at him. An impulse inside of you longs to devour him, to rid the land of the last of these men.

And then he speaks: “James?”

You go still.

Something tugs at your mind, a thought held in the last vestiges of your humanity. You realize that you know him, then, in that instant.

You have hated him, envied him, wanted him. Lost him. You know him.

“Oh James, I’m so sorry,” he says, trying to push himself up off of the ground. He winces as the sharp shards of rock slice his palms to ribbons. You smell the blood in the air and try not to salivate. “I failed you in this, too, then, didn’t I?”

You have a vague memory of begging, before you died.

You drop to all fours. To your hands? Knees? It has been a long time since you’ve thought of your body in this way.

The man before you flinches back, and you pause, you hang your head.

He is afraid.

You have never wanted him to be afraid of you. You only ever wanted him to be your friend. You only ever wanted—

Slowly, the man rises to his knees, hands still out, pleading for calm. “I made so many promises here, and I haven’t kept a single fucking one,” he says. “There’s no one left. No one but me. Please. Let him be free. What else do you have to fight against? I’m just an old man now. Sick. Hurt. Dying. Let him go.”

Something feels wrong inside of you. Something feels like it’s falling apart.

The man struggles to stand up. He’s unsteady on his feet, but he keeps his eyes on you the whole time that he moves. “Let him go. Let his soul go.” His voice cracks. “Please.”

He extends his hand to you, only unlike Hickey, he doesn’t even have a parody of an offering for you. No meat, no tongue to sacrifice in order to keep a set of secrets locked inside of his mouth. He has nothing for you but hope.

“I’m the last one,” he says. His face, upturned towards you, shines wetly in the moonlight. “There is no one else. It’s over. We are gone. Aren’t things set to rights now?” He staggers towards you. “Let him go.”

You lurch forward to meet him, but your body feels wrong. You feel small, suddenly. Weightless. Untethered.

The man’s name comes to you in a rush, and you blurt it out. “Francis,” you think you say. “Francis!”

His mouth opens, but before he can react, you are gone.

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Love the idea that the men of the ships become the terror haunting the Arctic themselves. So anything body horror and/or mindfuck. What kind of transformations do they undergo? Do they retain any sense of their old selves or do they totally lose themselves? Does Francis succumb too or is he once again the lone survivor?


End file.
